Excavations on this site, which has a frontage of 130 feet on the west side of Princes Street, beginning 110 feet north of Mansion House Street, were watched from January 1928 by Mr. Quintin Waddington of the Guildhall Museum, and from September 1928 until the close of excavation in January 1929, by the present writer also. Digging usually proceeded in narrow shafts, the sides of which were boarded up as the work went on, whilst the use of day and night shifts made progress rapid, so that it was only possible to obtain occasional and incomplete views of stratified matter. However, it proved possible to make periodical examinations of the pottery from a number of separate shafts; and a limited amount of trial excavation during the men's dinner-hour was also carried out.

It is now some years since I first drew attention to the discovery of certain very perfect leaf-shaped blades, of Early Solutré type, at Ipswich. These specimens were found during the putting in of deep foundations for a chimney-shaft at the Ipswich Corporation's Power Station in Constantine Road. The blades, which are unabraded, came from below a considerable thickness of gravel, where, it may be supposed, there at one time existed a land surface inhabited by Early Solutré man. This land surface is now buried beneath the Flood Plain terrace of the River Gipping, and is well below the water-table of the locality. It is clear, therefore, that since Early Solutré man lived in the Gipping Valley, a marked sinking of the East Anglian area has taken place. Following the appearance of my paper upon the blades found at Constantine Road, Ipswich, other specimens which, by their forms and manner of flaking, are also referable to Early Solutré times have been recovered. These examples have come to light about a mile farther up the valley. The site is situated on the south-west of the Bramford Road where the Flood Plain gravel is being exploited by Messrs. Warren Livingstone, Ltd. The gravel is raised by means of a powerful suction-pump, and, from my observations at Bramford Road, I entertain little doubt that, as at Constantine Road, the Flood Plain Early Solutré land-surface is present there below the Flood Plain gravel.

A study of the surviving remains of the Cistercian abbey church of Dundrennan, Kirkcudbright, reveals that the monks undertook a massive remodelling of the eastern portions in the late twelfth century. It was largely confined to the east walls of the transepts, the transept chapels, and the crossing, and was intended to give greater height and space by the addition of a third storey. The inspiration for the new ideas was evidently derived from Cistercian houses in the north of England such as Kirkstead, Roche and Byland.

‘Was there’, asks Mrs. Cunnington in the January number of this Journal, ‘a Second Belgic Invasion (represented by bead-rim pottery)?’ The answer on her last page is that it ‘remains extremely doubtful’. Her article is in fact a vigorous challenge to belief in this invasion, as maintained by us in a paper published last year, entitled ‘The Belgae of Gaul and Britain’. To this paper she does not indeed allude by name, for her notice is confined to one or its six sections only. In bringing the issue here once more under discussion, we feel bound to restore this section to its context, if only to give it no more importance than its due, for there are sundry points that have thus lain outside the scope of Mrs. Cunnington's article which may nevertheless perhaps prove important in estimating the matter as a whole. We will follow her arguments in order.

The Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolean Museum has received attention on numerous occasions; the most recent and most complete publication is that by Miss J. R. Kirk, issued by the Museum in the form of a ‘guide’. A full bibliography is there given. The figure in enamel on the obverse has been variously described by different authorities as Christ, the pope, some saint, or even Alfred himself (pl. xv a). Earlier parallels for its iconography have been cited, and Miss Kirk notes several instances in Celtic art, where similar figures are to be found, as well as a textile from Akhmin, in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, which bears the bust of a figure holding two wands in a similar position. In connexion with it she cites a suggestion put forward by Dalton that the idea of this figure holding two wands was modelled on that of the Egyptian god Osiris, who assumes a very similar position. More recently Dr. Schramm has attempted to explain the two staffs as a sceptre and a ‘baculum’, twin insignia of rule. Though Dr. Schramm's explanation is reasonable, and the ultimate derivation of the theme from an ancient Egyptian model seems perfectly possible, the more immediate ancestry of the jewel's decoration is hardly accounted for by these explanations, and what seems to the writer a more convincing iconographical prototype is here proposed. It is that the figure represents a portion of a theme which was very popular in East and West alike from the tenth century onwards, namely the ‘Ascent of Alexander’.

The Temple Church, London, has a rather unenviable notoriety among archaeologists due to its drastic restoration more than a century ago. Nothing could have been more thorough than the way in which every ancient surface was repaired away or renewed so that in the end the result was a complete modern simulacrum of this superb monument. Very little of this painful accomplishment has survived the serious fire occasioned by the air-raid of 1941, and it has devolved on me to reconstruct the church a second time. I can honestly say it is proving a more rewarding task than I at first thought possible, for behind the restorer's veneer there is sufficient of the old fabric remaining to make one feel there is still a life to be prolonged and much that is significant to be preserved.

The discovery of the wreck of the brig Mercurio, which sank in 1812 in the waters of the north Adriatic, is of major significance for the study of Italic Kingdom vessels from the Napoleonic era. The underwater excavations carried out in 2004–11 led to the recovery of many small finds, among which are several gunflints of different size and shape. The Mercurio gunflints were produced mainly from blades using a technique in use in Britain and France, but also in the workshops of the Lessini Hills around Ceredo (Verona province, northern Italy). We suggest that the flint employed for their manufacture probably came from Monte Baldo, in the Trentino, or perhaps from the River Tagliamento, in Friuli. We can exclude the possibility that the specimens recovered from the shipwreck were made from French flint because of the typically north Italian manufacturing technique and the character of the grey Treveti-derived flint. Given the complexity of the period during which the Grado (or Pirano) battle took place, the study of even such small items can contribute to a better interpretation of the dramatic events that characterised the beginning of the nineteenth century in that part of the Mediterranean.

An unpublished document in the archives of Lincoln Cathedral reveals the function of the thirteenth-century annex attached to the south-east transept, naming it as the cathedral’s thesaurarium (‘treasury’). This paper explores the fittings and the functions of the various chambers of the thesaurarium of Lincoln Cathedral, including its splendid crypt. In addition, the paper will examine the extent to which the thesaurarium conforms to the type of ecclesiastical treasure house favoured by secular canons in England and abroad. The building’s design and architectural language testify to the decorum and respect accorded to church treasures and the importance attached to the task of providing them with accommodation worthy of their status.

Your lordship and the Council of the Society of Antiquaries having determined that, to render the publication-price of Caedmon's Paraphrase more moderate, the Illuminations of the Manuscript should appear in the Archasologia, the following Brief Notice of the Work has been drawn up to accompany the Plates, closing with a Descriptive Catalogue of them by Mr. Thorpe, occasionally containing such passages of the Poem as the Illuminations are intended more strictly to refer to.

The actual working of a medieval port is a fascinating subject for study: when the port is London, and the time the fourteenth century, the interest is increased, for this is the earliest date at which the customs administration takes definite shape. The present paper was undertaken as part of the investigations into the life and works of Chaucer carried on by Professor Manly and Professor Rickert of the University of Chicago with the aid of a grant from the General Education Board. The research into Chaucer's work as controller of customs involved the collection of material of a more general character with only an indirect bearing on the poet's life. In this paper, with Mr. Manly's generous permission, is set out an account of the site of the Woolwharf with the buildings on it, a story which affords glimpses of the officials at work on the quay, of the machinery for the collection and administration of the customs in the port of London. The object of the search being limited, the present study makes no claim to be exhaustive in its treatment, though a large number of records have been examined at both the Public Record Office and the Guildhall.

The late discovery of a Vessel under the ancient bed of the river Rother having given rise to various conjectures and contradictory statements, respecting her age and former service, and the subject being of some interest in naval architecture, I was directed by Sir Byam Martin, at the request of Lord Melville, to repair to the place where she was found, and to obtain a true account of her build and situation; in order, if possible, to ascertain the country she belonged to, and the period of her submersion. My Report has been subsequently transmitted to the Admiralty; and, at the suggestion of Mr. Barrow, I have taken the liberty of addressing to you a Letter, containing the substance of that Report; and should the subject be compatible with the regulations as to Papers usually read at the Society of Antiquaries, it will afford me much satisfaction if you will do me the favour to introduce it at the ensuing meeting.

I, Thomas Butler knt. erle of Ormond, do make this my last will and testam't, &c. Item I give and devise to my dar dame Anne St. Leger—to my dar dame Marg't. Bolin, late the wife of Sir Wm. Bolin knt. my manor of Newhall in Essex—Item when my lorde my father, whole soul God assoile, left and delivered unto me a lytle whyte horne of ivory, garnished at both thendes with gold, and corse thereunto of whyte sylke, barred with barres of gold, and a tyret of golde thereupon, which was myn auncetours at fyrst time they were called to honour, and hath sythen contynually remained in the same blode, for wych cause my seid lord and father commanded me upon his blessing, that I shuld doo my devoir to cause it to contynue still in my blode as far furth as that myght lye in me soo to be doone to the honor of the same blode. Therefore for the accomplishment of my seid father's will, as farr as it is in me to execute the same, I woll that my executors delyver unto Sir Tho. Boleyn knt. son and heir apparent of my said dar Margaret, the said lytle white horn and corse, he to keep the same to the use of thissue male of his body lawfully begotten.

I have taken the liberty of sending you three boxes, containing various antiquities, which were discovered in Somersetshire last year, and which, I presume, are not unworthy the notice of the Society. If the enclosed short account of them is at all satisfactory, it is very much at their service.

Last winter, while at Rome, some sketches in the album of Padre Garrucci, of the Collegio Romano, made me acquainted with the discovery of certain archaic tombs at Palestrina, the ancient Præneste, which appeared to me to be of a very remarkable class.